Wheat which is used to a great extent within the baking industry for the production of different baked products contains a very varied content of gluten. Gluten, which is present in cereals in an amount of some percent up to 18% (wheat 7 to 18%) is a protein which contributes to the fact that a baked product, such as bread, sticks together. Gluten provides texture and elasticity to a dough and thereby the baked bread. Variations in the content of the gluten, however, creates large problems within the more industralized bakery industry which bases its business on given recipes, as well as it provides great problem to large users with defined quality of their baked products. Each product shall behave equally. The cereals oat, barley, and rye develop gluten to a more restricted degree.
One demand is thus to have a cereal product, primarily a wheat flour, having a constant content of gluten.
To improve softening and fresh holding properties of a bread malto dextrines are inter alia added today. Addition of individual components is however, costly and quite often, individually isolated components cost a lot, which restricts their use.
One problem to be solved is thus to add such properties to a flour and thereby add them in an optimal way to guarantee the quality of the starting flour.
In order that a bread shall be regarded as tasty it is important that it binds water, as well as it is important from a fresh holding point of view.
In order to improve this feature and to keep an even quality of the flour it is thus requested an addition of a water binding substance.
Cereals are milled to a high yield of flour, i.e., the milling is concentrated on getting as much as possible out of the starch content in the final flour. The cost for this will thereby become very high, as the energy required hereto increases radically with an increased flour out take.
One demand is thus to decrease the costs for milling.
At the milling of wheat the economy is based upon the fact that the milling of a flour amounts of about 70 to 80% of the kernel, as the remaining bran fraction has a small economical value as feeding product. In order to obtain an amount of gluten which is needed a mill can divide the flour into different fractions in order to mix the different flour qualities later on to a desired end product. The bakery industry requires a stronger flour (higher content of gluten) than what can be utilized at home baking. Thereby quite often a flour having a lower content of gluten is sold to house holds and flour having a higher content of gluten to the bakery industry. If cereals available can not reach the necessary content of gluten, gluten, which has been bought from the starch industry in a dried form, is often added to the flour. However, up to 20 to 25% of the vital properties of the gluten disappear at drying, which means that a certain over dosage is necessary to reach the desired amount. In particular in parts of the world where it is hard to grow wheat/rye/oat/barley having a high content of protein, cereals having a higher content of protein is imported to become mixed with a locally produced wheat. This provides for a better bakery flour than a flour having added dried gluten thereto. At the milling with a high yield of flour part of the aleurone layer (the inner most of four bran layers) will be part of the flour. This increases the protein content of the flour but unfortunately not with a protein which adds to good baking properties. Simultaneously herewith, this protein fractionation diminishes the value of the bran fraction. The protein of the aleurone layer is inter alia rich in lysin and is the protein which has a high nutritional content. Some years large rain falls occur at harvesting and harvest can only take place with a high water content. This leads to that a so called low fall number is obtained. This means that the enzyme activity of the flour is high, and that the flour is less suitable for baking purposes. Also this enzyme activity derives primarily from the outer layer of the cereal grain inter alia the aleurone layer. It has thus turned out that two essential advantages can be achieved by milling in such a way that the aleurone layer is not reached. This means in turn that the milling degree is decreased to 50 to 70% of the kernel. This means in turn that a considerably more simple milling equipment can be used, which in turn reduces the investment need. Further, the energy cost is markedly reduced.
It is further known to an enzymatically hydrolyse cereals, whole cereals or crushed cereals, as well as pure starch content to produce a sweetening syrup such as glucose syrup. Such syrup, carbohydrate composition, has sweetening properties and is suitable for baking purposes and encompasses an enzymatically hydrolysed cereal, such as hydrolysed wheat, rye, barley, oat, rye-wheat (Triticala), sorghum, corn and rice. The hydrolysis can thereby be carried out, starting from crushed whole cereal or flour using an alpha-amylase followed by an amyloglucosidase step to increase the glucose content of the product hydrolysed using the alpha-amylase. The final product comprises in a first step, a viscous maltose product rich in oligo-saccharides having a dry content of about 40% and, including step two, a product rich in glucose having a dry substance content of about 40%. By changing the water content the product can be obtained having a higher dry substance content leading to a higher degree of glucose. A dry product can be produced by spray drying, suitably in a conveyor spray drier. It is known that such hydrolysates have functional properties at baking and contributes thereby to inter alia a better consistency and prolonged fresh holding.
Thus there exist a number of problems within the bakery industry to be solved, viz to reduce costs for milling, improved contents of protein to guarantee the quality, improve softening and fresh holding properties.